Curtain Walling for elegant new apartments scheme in leafy London suburb

Chiswick Point is an elegant new mixed-use development by Bellway Homes in the London suburb of Chiswick, which features more than 6,000m2 of high performance aluminium curtain walling from Wicona, as well as window systems and a new lifting sliding balcony door.

The 15,000m2 scheme provides a collection of 124 contemporary apartments – 91 for market sale and 33 for affordable housing; and office accommodation to the ground floor.

The design by concept architect Flanagan Lawrence and delivered by Boon Brown Architects, optimises the location which is set between a railway embankment to the north of the site and a tranquil nature reserve to the south.

Two graceful buildings ascend from west to east with a series of stepping horizontal plates. The apartments were configured so all living spaces are south facing with a high level of glazing allowing open views of the nature reserve. 

The southern elevations have horizontal emphasis with expressed solid and recessed glazed linear bands that alternate up the façade created from Wicona’s WICTEC 50 stick curtain walling.

Continuous south-facing balconies extend along the length of the buildings to provide generous private amenity space for each apartment. Larger areas of full-height glazing serve the living areas to maximise daylight and enhance the sense of external awareness of the green surroundings.

Wicona’s new WICSLIDE 160 lifting sliding door was selected for access to each balcony and were set into the full-height curtain walling. The doors were required to meet the stringent PAS 24:2012 security standards and successfully passed all tests for the project. Main entrance and fire exit doors are WICSTYLE 65 hinged doors.

The northern façades at Chiswick Point have a vertical emphasis and here smaller windows were constructed for the bedroom areas from frameless WICLINE 90 SG top hung, open-out casements for natural ventilation. These systems are set within deeper reveals for greater privacy and security.

Commenting on the choice of Wicona’s façade systems for Chiswick Point, Craig Jones, Director, Boon Brown Architects said, “Our aim was to deliver an uncompromising design to make best use of light and space, with excellent build quality and finishes. We had great attention to detail in the choice of materials and selected Wicona to meet our design and cost criteria. We needed high levels of thermal performance, and demanding acoustic requirements as the buildings are located close to a railway line. All the glazing systems also had to be low maintenance and highly durable.”

“Both buildings are elegant forms and Wicona’s façade solutions have echoed this concept very well. The systems have delivered the slender and neat lines we envisaged, to complement the overall architectural design, and to help the scheme sit well in its locality, including the adjacent nature reserve.”

All the façade systems were dual colour – finished in dark grey externally and white internally – and had to reach Secured by Design standards. Both laminated and toughened glazing was used throughout to meet the required acoustic performance and a rating of 49RwdB.

The Chiswick Point development was designed to a BREEAM excellent rating and level 4 Code for Sustainable Homes. The six and nine-storey buildings occupy a former industrial site and were clad in pre-cast concrete panels.

WICSLIDE 160 is Wicona’s new aluminium lifting sliding system, which takes balcony door technology to the next level. 

Engineered to achieve smooth, effortless door operation with contemporary aesthetics, outstanding thermal efficiency, rigorous security standards to PAS 24:2012, the system is arobust patio or balcony door solution.

Suitable for residential, leisure and commercial applications, it can accommodate thelargest possible leaf sizes andallow specifiers to create larger exterior openings and open up areas of living space to blur the distinction between inside and out.